Brief: Research what lies in the possibility spaces between topics of your choice, and create an abstract visualization to represent your findings. (Prof. Matt Lewis)
Location: The Ohio State University
Constraints: No constraints, no examples, no rules. Just explore!
Collaboration: Group project with McKenzy Connelly (4th Year Visual Communications) and Christi Nguyen (4th Year Interior Design)
Introduction:
The first project for a 3rd and 4th year Emerging Technologies course focused on using familiar technologies to describe and imagine what emerging technologies might be used for, now and in the future. We were encouraged to choose new technologies we were interested in and see how we might pair them with personal and design interests to imagine what new ideas might come from such combinations.
The project was very process-focused, and in this presentation we outline the path we took to developing our final visualization, recipe cards that represent our abstract ideas created using artificial intelligence (DALL-E/ChatGPT). Our final concept, using AI to generate fictional dessert recipes, included a physical treat for our class: We used DALL-E to generate an image of a Minecraft-inspired cake and then brought in a bunch of little Minecraft cakes for our class to enjoy.
As a group, we were very collaborative when it came to idea generation and content creation. I created this presentation, McKenzy baked the cakes, and Christi created a physical version of our recipe book.
Check out our final project below:
Lessons Learned:
Our biggest challenge when working through this project came to how open-ended it was (a strategy purposefully employed by our professor). Each week had a theme and a suggestion for where we might want to be in the process, but nothing more. While we resisted allowing ourselves to focus on the journey more than the final product at first, we soon learned to appreciate the research process and let our findings guide our project, rather than head straight for the final deliverable and design our process around where we wanted it to lead.
"One bite and all your dreams will come true!"
- The Evil Queen, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
